An empty house still costs money, but you can cut most of that to almost nothing before you lock the door. The savings come from the same places they always do: heating and hot water first, then the handful of gadgets sitting on standby. The trick is knowing what to switch off and what to leave alone, because turning off the wrong thing can cost you a frozen pipe or a freezer full of ruined food.
The short answer. Turn the hot water off at the programmer or immersion switch, and turn the heating off too in mild weather, or down to frost protection in a hard winter. Switch the TV, console and chargers off at the wall. Leave the fridge, freezer and, if you rely on it, the broadband router running. For a week away that adds up to a real saving with no risk to the house.
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Where an empty house still spends money
Two costs never stop. The daily standing charge for electricity and gas is billed whether anyone is home or not, so no amount of switching off drops your bill to zero. And the fridge and freezer keep cycling, because you generally want them to. Everything else is optional. Heating and hot water left on their normal schedule will happily warm an empty house and reheat a tank nobody draws from, which is pure waste. Standby gadgets keep sipping power for no one. Those are the costs you go after before you leave, and they are almost all avoidable in the two minutes it takes to walk round the house.
Heating: off, but not completely in a hard winter
In spring, summer and mild autumn spells, turn the heating fully off at the programmer. There is nothing to protect and no reason to warm empty rooms. Leaving it on the usual timer is one of the commonest ways people waste money while away, because the boiler fires morning and evening for a house with nobody in it.
Winter needs a little more thought. If a real freeze is forecast, do not switch the heating stone cold, because standing water in the pipes can freeze, expand and split them, and a burst pipe costs far more than any energy you saved. Instead use the frost protection setting if your system has one, or drop the thermostat low, around 8 to 10 degrees, so the boiler only kicks in to keep the pipes safe. That costs very little over a week and buys you peace of mind. The central heating timer guide shows how to set a holiday schedule rather than leaving the normal one running.
Hot water: switch it off
If you have a hot water cylinder, turn it off at the programmer or the immersion switch before you go. There is no point keeping 150 litres of water hot for a house nobody is showering in, and a tank reheats itself several times a day to replace the heat that leaks out through the jacket. Switching it off for a week saves all of that, and when you get back you lose nothing but the hour or so it takes to reheat the tank once. Whether a timer beats leaving it on is covered in hot water timer versus constant, and the cost of a single reheat in immersion heater cost.
Combi boiler households have nothing to do here, because a combi heats water on demand and stores none. No tap running means no water heated, so it already costs nothing while you are away.
The fridge and freezer: usually leave them running
For a week or two, leave the fridge and freezer on. A freezer full of food is money in the bank, and turning it off to save a few pennies of running cost means throwing that food away, which wipes out the saving many times over. A well-stocked freezer also holds its cold better than an empty one, so it barely notices a quiet week.
Only for a long absence, several weeks or more, is it worth emptying, switching off, defrosting and propping the door open to keep it fresh. Before a long trip, run down the fridge stocks so nothing spoils, and eat through or plan around the freezer contents. For everything under a fortnight, the sensible move is to leave both alone, perhaps nudging the fridge a degree warmer if it is very full and you have taken perishables out. Keeping them running efficiently the rest of the year is covered in fridge and freezer efficiency.
Standby and always-on gadgets
This is the small, free tidy-up. Switch off at the wall anything that draws power doing nothing: the television and its set-top box, the games console, the microwave with its glowing clock, phone and laptop chargers, the printer, and the speaker that sits on standby. Individually these are pennies, but there is no downside to killing them for a week, and a switched extension lead lets you take out a whole cluster in one flick. The full story on standby power ranks which devices actually waste power and which barely register, so you know where to aim.
Leave running only what you actually need. If you have security cameras, a smart doorbell, a heating system you control from your phone, or anything else that talks to the internet, the broadband router has to stay on, and it costs very little to run. The freezer stays on too, for the reasons above. Everything else can go dark until you are home.
A worked example: one week away in autumn
Rough figures for a typical home leaving for seven days in autumn, at an example electricity rate of 26p and gas of about 8p per kWh under the current Ofgem cap. Treat these as an illustration, since every home differs.
| What you switch off | Rough saving over a week |
|---|---|
| Hot water cylinder off instead of reheating daily | £3 to £6 |
| Heating off, or on frost protection, instead of the usual schedule | £2 to £10 |
| TV, console, chargers and other standby off at the wall | 50p to £1.50 |
Illustrative only. Heating savings swing widely with the weather and how your schedule was set; in a cold snap on frost protection the saving is smaller because the boiler still runs a little.
So a week away might save somewhere between about £5 and £15 for a few minutes of effort, most of it from the hot water and heating rather than the gadgets. Over a fortnight it roughly doubles. If you want to price your own appliances before deciding what to switch off, the running-cost calculator turns any wattage into pennies.
Do not sacrifice security for pennies
A dark, silent house that stays dark for a fortnight tells anyone watching that nobody is home. It is worth spending a few of the pennies you just saved on looking lived in. A cheap plug-in timer on an LED lamp costs almost nothing to run and switches a light on in the evening. If you have cameras or a smart doorbell, that is a good reason to leave the router on. The point is balance: strip out the genuine waste, the hot water and the empty-house heating, but do not switch off the things that keep the place safe to save a few pence.
The two-minute pre-holiday checklist
- Heating off in mild weather, or on frost protection or about 8 to 10 degrees in a hard winter.
- Hot water cylinder off at the programmer or immersion switch (combi households skip this).
- TV, set-top box, console and speakers off at the wall.
- Phone, laptop and other chargers unplugged.
- Dishwasher and washing machine empty, finished and switched off.
- Fridge and freezer left on; only empty and defrost for a long trip.
- Router left on if you have cameras, a smart doorbell or remote heating control.
- A timer on a lamp so the house looks lived in.
None of it takes long, and the habit is worth building because it works for a weekend away as much as a fortnight abroad. If your bills have crept up lately for reasons that have nothing to do with holidays, is my energy direct debit too high and the winter energy checklist are the places to look next.
Common questions
Should I turn my heating off completely when I go on holiday?
In mild weather, yes, turn it off at the programmer. In a hard winter, do not switch it stone cold, because pipes can freeze and burst. Use the frost protection setting or drop the thermostat to around 8 to 10 degrees so the boiler only runs to keep the pipes safe.
Should I turn the fridge and freezer off while away?
For a week or two, leave them on. Turning a full freezer off means throwing away the food inside, which costs far more than the running cost you save. Only for a long absence of several weeks is it worth emptying, defrosting and switching off.
How much does it cost to leave the house running while on holiday?
The standing charge for electricity and gas is billed whichever way, and the fridge and freezer keep running. Beyond that, an empty house on its normal heating and hot water schedule can waste roughly £5 to £15 over a week, most of which you avoid by switching those two off.
What should I unplug before going away?
Switch off the TV and set-top box, games console, chargers, printer and speakers at the wall, and make sure the dishwasher and washing machine are off. Leave the fridge and freezer on, and leave the router on if you rely on cameras, a smart doorbell or remote heating control.